| Name: | Lead King Basin - Lost Trail Creek loop | 
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| Description: | Second ride from Marble that I got from the guide book, honestly all the other trails and road around the town are too steep. I rode this the next day after the long ride towards Crested Butte, which was rainy again, but, I lucked out and only got sprinkled on. The first part of the ride past Crystal was the same as the previous day and I was not looking forward to the rocky road. But, it went by faster than I thought. The road forks about 1/2 mile past Crystal and keep climbing to Lead King Basin, with 14000 ft Snowmass Mountain towering over it. The road stayed and steep rocky till the basin. Right when I got through and started climbing up the switchbacks on now smooth road, a quick thunderstorm rolled in. I quickly backtraced to the cabin in the basin and hid under tarp structure that was covering an old pickup truck. There was a fire going in a pit outside the cabin but noone seemed around. After a while the owner, mountain man named Paul came over and we chatter a bit till it stopped raining. Then I climbed up the ca. 1300 ft to the pass between the Lead King Basin and Lost Trail Creek, with a minor hail storm racing through near the top. Then followed a fast and occasionally muddy descent down the road back to Marble. This was a fairly fun ride given the weather, Lead King Basin is very scenic and the road is fairly smooth about 1/2 of the loop (the one I took down). It may be easier to go up Lost Trail Creek but it's quite steep, the way I did it (following the book), was partly less steep, though rockier climbing. | |
| URL: | TopoFusion Home Page | |
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| Total Distance: | 16.77 miles (26.98 km) |
| Total Trip Time: | 3:36:24 (3:19:18 moving time) |
| Total Climbing: | 3778 feet (1152 m) |
| Total Descending: | 3479 feet (1060 m) |
| Average Speed: | 5.05 mph (8.12 kph) |
